If the hybrid drive is a parallel hybrid drive of a vehicle, for example, then the torques of a first power unit, e.g., a combustion engine, and a second power unit, e.g., an electric machine, are added up. This electric machine, as starter generator, is connected to a belt drive, for instance, or to a crankshaft of the combustion engine. While the torque of the electric machine is able to be set virtually without any delay in time, the combustion engine has a finite adjustment rate of its actual torque. A combustion engine in the form of an Otto engine is usually equipped with an electronic throttle valve to regulate the air mass flow. The adjustment rate of the throttle valve and dynamic charge effects in an intake manifold of the combustion engine do no allow a highly dynamic setting of a specified air mass flow and of the instantaneous torque it generates. A lead setpoint torque is acting on the air path formed in this manner. In an efficiency-optimized operation of the combustion engine, with an ideal ignition angle, the combustion engine generates a basic torque that is optimal (ideal) with regard to efficiency. The transfer from lead setpoint torque to efficiency-optimized basic torque defined by the air path dynamics, is able to be described approximately with the aid of a series connection of a deadtime element and a delay element of the first order (PT1-element). Considerably higher dynamics are achievable with the aid of the electric machine on the one hand, and with the aid of an ignition timing adjustment in the combustion engine on the other.
For example, in the conventional methods for dynamic torque control of the power units of a hybrid drive, a base load is supplied by the combustion engine by an efficiency-optimized basic torque, while temporary torque requirements are supplied by the electric machine or partially also by ignition-angle interventions in the combustion engine. However, the conventional methods for dynamic torque coordination have no overall concept which implements a specified overall setpoint torque in a highly dynamic manner in a broad working range and which simultaneously takes specified marginal conditions into account, especially with regard to fuel consumption (efficiency), exhaust emissions and service life of the power units.